rootshell

A free, Metal-accelerated terminal emulator for iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro, and Mac.

Website · App Store · App Store (China) · Changelog · TestFlight Beta · macOS Download

About

rootshell is an MIT-licensed open source terminal emulator built for Apple platforms. It features GPU-accelerated rendering powered by libghostty, native SSH with post-quantum key exchange, Secure Enclave key storage, VPN tunneling, HTTP and HTTPS traffic capture, high performance HEVC screen sharing, an agent inbox that tracks coding agents and long-running commands across sessions, end-to-end encrypted push notifications and coding-agent hooks, a built-in file browser and native git client, a voice-controlled AI agent, cloud provider integration (AWS, Azure, Linode, DigitalOcean), Kubernetes node debugging, native tmux and herdr control modes, and Rootshell Roam, a mosh-compatible and tssh (QUIC+KCP) mobile terminal protocol with seamless network roaming and session persistence.

For full feature details, screenshots, and documentation, visit www.rootshell.com.

Open Source

rootshell is open source under the MIT License. This repository contains the app source and is also the place to:

• Report bugs
• Request features
• Ask questions about functionality
• Contribute improvements

Reporting Issues

Before opening an issue, please:

1. Check existing issues to avoid duplicates
2. Update to the latest version via the App Store, TestFlight, or the macOS download
3. Include relevant details when reporting bugs: - App version (Settings → About) - Device and OS version - Steps to reproduce - Expected vs actual behavior - Any error messages or screenshots

Issue Templates

• Bug Report - Something isn't working correctly
• Feature Request - Suggest a new feature or improvement
• Question - General questions about usage

Getting the App

rootshell is completely free with no ads, subscriptions, or in-app purchases.

Install via Homebrew

brew tap kitknox/rootshell
brew install --cask rootshell

Key Features

Terminal & Rendering

• Metal Accelerated - GPU-accelerated rendering powered by libghostty with buttery smooth scrolling
• 450+ Themes - Curated color themes with live preview, favorites, and per-tab overrides
• Custom Themes - Create your own themes with a full color picker, duplicate built-in themes, or import Ghostty theme files. Theme-aware UI tints the entire app
• Day/Night Themes - Automatic theme switching based on sunrise/sunset at your location
• Tabs & Splits - Resizable split windows within tabs with session persistence
• Session Restoration - Tabs, splits, themes, and connections restore automatically on launch
• Nerd Fonts - Multiple monospace Nerd Fonts built-in with full icon support
• Custom Font Import - Import TTF and OTF fonts with live preview, auto-grouped by family
• Clickable Hyperlinks - URLs in terminal output are interactive: Cmd+click or context menu to open
• Cursor Blink Styles - 7 animated cursor modes: normal, breathing, heartbeat, neon flicker, pulse, candle, and rootshell
• Vertical Tab Sidebar - Tab switcher as a vertical list (⌘⇧\) with search, keyboard navigation, drag to reorder, context menus on every row, and pinning as a docked, resizable column
• Grouped Tabs - Automatic tab sections for local shells, remote hosts (collapsed by subnet), networks, Kubernetes and cloud sessions, and tmux gateways. Group by project or remote host with manual overrides
• Move Tabs Between Windows - Drag a tab or a whole group into another window without disconnecting (iPad and Mac)
• Interactive Tab Swipe - Swipe between tabs with a live carousel; both terminals stay live during the gesture
• Tab Exposé - See live previews of every tab in the current group or project, including Screen Sharing sessions. Pull down from the tab bar or press ⌘⇧A to open it; swipe sideways or use ⌘⌥[ and ⌘⌥] to page between scopes, each of which remembers its last-selected tab. On a tab attached to herdr, tmux, or zellij it opens on that session's own tabs with live, colored previews of every pane; pick one to switch the session, or page over to your app tabs
• Tab Hover Previews - Rest the pointer on a tab in the tab bar or the vertical tab sidebar to see a live thumbnail of it in a glass card that slides along as you move between tabs. Pinch to resize it, and click it to open Tab Exposé with that tab highlighted (iPad and Mac; off in Settings if you prefer)
• Pixel-Smooth Scrollback - Sub-cell scroll offsets with ProMotion 120 Hz rendering on iPhone
• HDR Brightness Boost - Drive the terminal brighter on HDR-capable displays via a floating HUD (⌘⌃B), clamped to display headroom
• Visor - Quake-style drop-down terminal summoned by a global hotkey. Slides from any screen edge, joins all Spaces, and floats above other apps (macOS Standalone)
• Battery Controls - Cap refresh rate at Auto, Adaptive, 60, or 30 Hz with automatic throttling under Low Power Mode or thermal pressure

tmux Control Mode

• Native tmux Integration - Attach with tmux -CC and tmux windows become native tabs, panes become native splits, with native copy/paste, scrollback search, and per-window font size
• Sessions Dashboard - Every session with window counts and live tappable previews (⌘⇧S). Switch, create, rename, or kill sessions
• Window & Pane Administration - Create, rename, move, link/unlink, and kill windows; zoom, swap, break, and move panes from native menus
• Seamless Resume - Control mode sessions reattach automatically across app restarts over tssh
• Inline Graphics in Panes - Kitty graphics and iTerm2 inline images render inside panes, with OSC 52 clipboard, OSC 9;4 progress, and notification passthrough
• Auto-Start Modes - Off, tmux, or tmux control mode per connection, with configurable tab-close and new-tab actions

herdr Control Mode

Requires rootshell 1.0.12-147 or newer and herdr 0.9.0 or newer on the host.

• Native Tabs & Panes - herdr tabs and splits become native rootshell tabs and panes, with sidebar navigation, keyboard shortcuts, Tab Exposé, and native management controls
• Workspaces & Worktrees - Manage workspaces and Git worktrees from the workspace dashboard, and move panes between tabs or workspaces
• Agent Activity - herdr's agent detection takes priority, with per-pane status and notifications that return to the matching pane
• Flexible Connections - Enable Control Mode in the session picker, select herdr (control) for auto-start, or use --herdr-control in Quick Connect. Supports SSH, tssh, and local macOS sessions
• Optional Fork - Regular upstream herdr supports most features through fallback mode, including native selection and automatic scrolling while selecting. The experimental rootshell fork adds pixel-smooth native scrolling, global scrollback search, and shared viewing on capable servers

See the herdr control mode guide for setup, the fork and fallback comparison, installation, returning to upstream herdr, and protocol details.

Visual Effects

• Custom Shaders - Import shaders directly from Shadertoy with full uniform support
• Cursor Effects - Warp, Sweep, Tail, and Blaze cursor animations
• Background Effects - Solar (real-time sun tracking), Starfield, Fireflies, Aurora, Nebula, Butterflies, and Jellyfish. Butterflies flock, court, and perch with real physics; both new effects steer around active terminal text
• Video Backgrounds - Play looping video files as terminal backgrounds with speed control
• Photo Backgrounds - Terminal background from photo library with opacity presets, 9 image filters, and Ken Burns cinematic pan/zoom animation
• Window Transparency - Configurable transparency with blur (macOS)

SSH & Networking

• Native SSH Client - Written entirely in Swift with no external dependencies
• Jump Hosts - Multi-hop connections through bastion servers
• SSH Agent Forwarding - Three approval modes: auto-approve, per-session, per-request
• Secure Enclave Keys - Hardware-protected P-256 keys generated in and never leaving the Secure Enclave, alongside software Ed25519, ECDSA, and RSA keys with biometric protection
• Passkey-Backed Keys - sk-ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 keys created, held, and synced by your passkey provider (iCloud Keychain or a third-party manager like 1Password), confirmed per signature with Face ID or Touch ID
• Post-Quantum SSH - mlkem768x25519-sha256 hybrid key exchange and ML-DSA host key signatures for end-to-end post-quantum protection, plus hybrid ML-DSA-44 + Ed25519 user keys (ssh-mldsa44-ed25519, interoperable with OpenSSH 10.4) and experimental pure ML-DSA-44/65/87. Also supports sntrup761x25519-sha512 (OpenSSH 9.0+)
• Keyboard-Interactive Auth - RFC 4256 challenge-response (2FA, OTP, PAM) across every launch path, with password-manager AutoFill in auth prompts
• OpenPubkey SSH (opkssh) - Sign in with Google, Microsoft, GitLab, or a custom OIDC issuer to create an SSH identity with no key files. Ephemeral key presented as an OpenSSH certificate with silent renewal
• SSH Certificates - At